By Lananh Nguyen and Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK (Reuters) -New York City homicide detectives sought clues on Tuesday to what possessed a Las Vegas man to drive cross-country and storm into a midtown Manhattan office tower to open fire with a military rifle, killing four people, including a policeman.
Gunman Shane Tamura, 27, brought the carnage to an end not long after it began on Monday evening by fatally shooting himself in the chest on the 33rd floor of the Park Avenue skyscraper.
The building houses the NFL headquarters and offices of private equity giant Blackstone , the accounting firm KPMG and real estate company Rudin Management, among other major financial firms.
Police said the shooter when he was found was carrying “a manifesto” and notes about chronic traumatic encephalopathy caused by head trauma, Bloomberg News reported, citing two senior law enforcement officers.
He wrote that the NFL did not do enough to address CTE, which has been linked to cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems in former players. The suspect had played football before a head injury ended his career, Bloomberg reported.
“We’re still investigating,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program in an interview on Tuesday, adding that investigators have reason to believe the shooter was focused on the NFL offices housed in the building.
Among the four victims slain was Didarul Islam, 36, a New York Police Department officer who immigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh. Mayor Eric Adams described the officer, who had been on the force for about three and a half years, as a “true blue” hero.
A Blackstone executive was among those killed in the shooting, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Other employees of the investment management firm are in the hospital receiving treatment, the Journal reported.
An NFL employee was also injured in the shooting and was in stable condition at a hospital, the Journal reported, citing a memo sent by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to league staff.
Goodell wrote there would be “increased security presence” at the league’s offices “in the days and weeks to come,” ESPN reported.
Authorities offered few details about the three other victims – two men and a woman. A third man was gravely wounded by the gunfire and was “fighting for his life” in a nearby hospital, the mayor said.
HISTORY OF MENTAL ILLNESS
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters Monday night that the gunman appeared to have acted alone.
Tisch said Tamura had a documented history of mental illness and appeared to have driven to New York from Las Vegas over a period of three days.
According to recap of the shooting spree outlined by Tisch, Tamura entered the skyscraper’s lobby, turned to his right and immediately opened fire on the NYPD officer, who was assigned to the building’s security detail.
The suspect then proceeded to shoot a woman and two men as he sprayed the lobby area with gunfire but inexplicably allowed another woman to pass him unharmed before he took the elevator to the 33rd-floor offices of Rudin Management. There he fatally shot his final victim before taking his own life, Tisch said.
A widely published photo of the shooter, that CNN said was shared by police, showed him walking into the building carrying his rifle. Preliminary checks of the suspect’s background did not show a significant criminal history, CNN reported, citing officials.
Another widely circulated photo showed the permit issued to Tamura by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department allowing him to legally carry a concealed firearm.
Tamura carried out his rampage, according to Tisch, armed with an M4 carbine, an assault-style rifle used extensively in the U.S. military.
A loaded revolver was later recovered from the black BMW vehicle Tamura had left double-parked outside the office tower, along with a backpack and prescription medications, she said.
(Reporting by Lananh Nguyen, Michelle Nichols and Daniel Fastenberg in New York and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Additional reporting by Brad Brooks and Ismail Shakil. Writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Dan Burns, Sandra Maler, Frank McGurty, Michael Perry and Nick Zieminski)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.